Sip trunking why

Advertising Disclosure. SIP trunking is an increasingly popular way for businesses to minimize their phone costs and improve their telecommunication bandwidth, but it can be a difficult service to understand. We broke down what SIP trunking is and how to know if it's right for your business. SIP trunks are virtual phone lines that allow you to make and receive calls over the internet to anyone who has a phone number. SIP — or Session Initiation Protocol — is a popular telephony protocol that initiates calls over the internet.

It's used primarily to manage multimedia communications, such as voice and video calls. SIP establishes and terminates a phone call's connection, controls data transfer, and enables services like Skype and Facebook Messenger to provide free calling worldwide. A "trunk" is a line — or link — that carries signals and connects nodes in a communications system.

To explain SIP trunk channels, think of it as a pipe that carries the data channels inside it to connect two locations. Key takeaway: You use SIP trunks to make and receive calls over the internet.

Specifically, this technology relies on virtual phone numbers to facilitate the calls. SIP trunking is a method of sending voice and other communications over the internet through an IP-enabled private branch exchange PBX , a telephone system within an enterprise that switches calls between users on local lines while allowing them to share the use of external phone lines. A PBX reduces costs by avoiding the need for each user to have a line to a telephone company's central office.

SIP can be used to send and receive local and long-distance calls, text messages, and emails; browse the internet; and conduct video chats. SIP trunking replaces the traditional method of the public switched telephone network PSTN , a copper-wire, circuit-switched network that requires a physical connection between two points to make a call.

Instead, SIP trunks use a packet-switched network, which breaks down voice calls into digital packets and sends them over a network to their destination. Concurrent call limitations are based on available internet bandwidth on the upload side, typically slower than your download speed.

Each noncompressed call uses approximately kilobytes per second Kbps of bandwidth, meaning you can determine your limitations if you know your upload speed.

If your upload speed is 5 megabits per second Mbps , you can expect your system to handle 50 5,, divided by , concurrent calls. Alternatively, if you know the number of concurrent calls during your busiest hours, you can multiply that by Kbps to determine your required bandwidth using this formula:.

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Each SIP trunk can hold an unlimited number of channels. A channel — or line — is equivalent to one incoming or outgoing call. Because each trunk can hold as many channels as necessary, a business would need only one SIP trunk no matter how many calls you have coming in and going out at one time. The more phone calls you have running concurrently, the more trunk channels you will need.

Tip: When looking for a SIP trunking service provider, make sure you have a good estimate of how many channels you'll need, as many vendors will use this information to provide an accurate quote. When looking for a SIP trunking provider, you want a company that provides the features you need at a price within your budget, while offering strong customer support. Here are some of the most popular SIP trunking service providers:.

For more information, check out our recommendations for the best business phone system providers. However, SIP is a specific protocol that enables VoIP by establishing start points and endpoints, and defining messages during a call.

SIP trunking transmits communications over the internet, while PRI relies on traditional copper telephone lines to deliver voice and data. With PRI, upkeep on the bundle of wires is often required, and maintenance costs to support these systems increase as the technology becomes further outdated. The most significant benefit of using SIP trunking with the business phone system you choose is that it's highly cost-effective. This is mainly because it eliminates the costs of long-distance calling.

If your employees often make phone calls across the country or the ocean, SIP trunking may be the answer for you. Codecs convert audio voice signals into compressed digital form for transmission over the internet. When the signal reaches its destination on the network, the codec converts it to an uncompressed audio signal for replay. Different codecs have different levels of compression.

The two most popular for SIP trunking are G. Excellent audio quality is essential for any business communication system. The best solutions offer voice quality indistinguishable from traditional landlines, but it is crucial to be diligent about the grade of the carrier network used by your SIP provider.

Only Tier-1 carriers connect directly to the backbone of the internet for the highest possible call quality and reliability. Quality of Service QoS is a router setting used to tell the network to prioritize voice calls over other data traffic. Enabling QoS ensures audio quality will remain high, even while data-intensive activities, like downloading large files or streaming content.

There are many benefits of SIP for your business. One of the most important is the reduced communications costs. In many cases, unlimited local and long-distance calls to most of North America are bundled in with the monthly fee for each SIP channel. Additional benefits include built-in business continuity features, network consolidation, and unified communication features like video, presence, application integration, and instant messaging. Since SIP trunking is an active market, you may find several players in the industry.

How to choose the best for your company? Check out these essential criteria:. A reputable partner will offer platform interoperability, meaning they can customize their services to your unique business communication needs versus offering a cookie-cutter approach.

Your chosen SIP provider should make available as much data as possible to you in real-time. This data call records, for instance will help you drive your sales, marketing and customer service.

Find out what security measures they have to protect against toll fraud and hacking methods. With a SIP provider, adding phone lines or add-on services is as simple as purchasing an additional handset and scaling your monthly service agreement.

While traditional telephone service can be interrupted due to weather events, shenanigans in the telephone room or a drunk driver hitting a telephone pole, SIP trunking is a reliable technology.

With a vendor that offers mobile-failover as a form of redundancy, your phones can be used for communications even in case of some failure by allowing you to route your calls to other offices or employee mobile devices. Your IT team will never have to use their mobile device to wait on hold to speak to a customer service representative again.

SIP trunking and VoIP phones offer easy-to-use administrative portals for on-site management, including actions like adjusting call routing, changing extensions, or adding phone lines fully on-demand.

While SIP Trunking is a very well-established gateway to significant cost savings, reliability, and flexibility, no two organizations are the same. There are no technological silver bullets. While SIP trunking offers few disadvantages compared to alternatives, it requires sufficient data connectivity bandwidth to work effectively. Organizations who choose SIP trunking as part of an on-premise VoIP solution will need to plan for some up-front capital investment in equipment, and may have trouble finding skilled telecommunications professionals for implementation and ongoing maintenance.

However, SIP is the right choice for many organizations who are ready to reap the benefits of Internet-based phones and establish a relationship with a hosted VoIP vendor and move their business communications to the cloud. If your organization has ever struggled with confusing monthly phone bills, unreliable phone lines, high calling costs, or balancing on-site phone lines with employee mobile devices, you may benefit significantly from making the switch to SIP. To learn more about how SIP can enhance your business communications and how much you stand to save with SIP trunking, we recommend The Business Phone Buyers Guide for more insight into selecting the right options, vendors, and handsets for your organization.

Get a Quote. Book a Meeting. Blog Home. Why SIP? What is SIP Trunking? Cost Savings With traditional phone service, your organization is subject to different, often mystifying charges for your local, long distance, and international calling.